A former Catholic priest, Father Garbriel Charo, risks arrest after allegedly failing to remit Sh7,000 monthly for the child up keep.

The priest was sued by a choir girl woman he impregnated four years ago. The Father has now been ordered by the court to show cause why he should not be jailed after failing to remit the money for nearly one year.

The woman through her lawyer told the court that despite the priest having been ordered to remit Sh7,000 per month towards the upkeep their child, he had ignored the order and should, therefore, be cited for contempt of court.

“There is an order that the defendant pays Sh7,000 per month. The payment has not been done. The total amount stands at Sh75,000. There is no indication that the same is going to be paid. I pray the priest be committed to civil jail,” said the woman’s lawyer.

The priest has been fighting the child up keep suit since 2014, when he admitted having sired the child with his secret lover who was then a member of the church choir.

Father Charo now wants the court to reduce the amount the court ordered him to pay from Sh7,000 to Sh3,000 per month. But the mother of the child insists the priest should continue paying Sh7,000 as maintenance of the child following a court order issued on June 30, 2014, by Senior Resident Magistrate B. Koech.

The woman had asked the court to order the priest to remit to her Sh51,000 per month. But after hearing both parties, the magistrate ordered Father Charo to pay the mother of his child Sh7,000 per month.

Following the order, the woman says the Father paid the amount in question promptly, but stopped sometime last year, forcing her to go back to court.

She now wants the court’s intervention which issued a notice to him to show cause why he should not be cited for contempt of court.

Father Charo, however, says since he was stopped from working as a priest, he wants the court to reduce the amount.

He says in an affidavit that he cannot afford to Sh,7000 per month as had been ordered by the children’s court in 2014 because he has been suspended from the priesthood.

“I have been unemployed since January 2016 when I was suspended from the priesthood since Archbishop of Mombasa Catholic Diocese demanded I step aside from priesthood till the minor attains the age of majority,” says Father Charo in the affidavit filed in court.

Adding: “I have been relying on fellow priests and friends to take care of the minor and myself”

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